Kalevi "Häkä" Häkkinen (78) and Karl Schranz (68) used to train alpine skiing together in St. Anton, Austria, during the 1950´s. Later Häkkinen became World Champion in speed skiing, coach of Finnish alpine skiing national team and President of FIS speed skiing committee. Schranz became three time world champion, two times winner in World Cup and one of the all-time most successful alpine skiers in Austria.......
text by Jukka Muukkonen
-In 1954 Kalevi Häkkinen was working in a forest as a lumberman when he fort a message that on Finnish Skiing Federation's athlete exchange journey to St. Anton there would be one place available for an alpine skier.
-The train was leaving in three hours. One of the athletes had fallen ill, so I got his place, says Häkkinen.
-The idea of the athlete exchange program was, that cross country skiers from central Europe came to Finland and reciprocally the Finns went to Austria to train alpine skiing.
-Accommodation was in Schwarzer Adle, one of the fanciest hotels in the village. Well, in that hotel I didn't live on winters after that when I was training and competing on my own. Immediately on the first winter I said that I definitely will come back to St. Anton, remembers Häkkinen.
-One day a 16-year old boy came to the training site and skied own the course with quite a speed. I thought that this boy surely knows how to ski, says Häkkinen.
-That boy was Karl Schranz. Häkkinen learned to know Schranz and the other Austrian skiers and started to train together with them.
-My first impression of Kalevi was a serious and friendly person who you could trust. He became a good friend and a team member, just like he would have been a native from St. Anton. As an alpine skier, it was obvious that downhill skiing was his strength, says Karl Schranz. Häkkinen on his behalf learned to know Schranz as a lively and energetic person who got along well with everyone.
-At those times the legendary slalom coach, Tony Spiss, was coaching Schranz and other Austrians who trained in St. Anton.
-We had the best possible training of those times. We trained slalom and downhill every day. First two to three hours in the morning, then a couple of hours in the afternoon. Compared to today, we trained really hard, but today it is possible to use all the experience and know-how, which we didn't have, describes Schranz.
Eight Christmas in St. Anton
-After the winter of 1954 Häkkinen returned to St. Anton on the following winters as well. During summer he saved money and worked as a lumberman in Finland and in the beginning of winter always traveled to St. Anton to train and compete in the Alps. First by train and then by ferry from Hankasalmi, central of Finland to Stockholm and then by air to Austria. The budget was very tight, but there was no choice: to make it possible to train in the Alps, the only possibility was to find cheap accommodation and live very simple life during the winters.
-Before the middle of the 1960´s I had spent eight winters in St. Anton. We trained and traveled to downhill races in Zermatt, Cervinia and around the Alps together with the Austrians.
-Häkkinen says that St. Anton has always been the most important place to him. The place number two has been Kitzbuhel and Hahnenkamm downhill course there.
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-It would have been too expensive to travel to Finland so I stayed in St. Anton for Christmas. Also in 1961 when I broke my leg, I stayed in St. Anton while the leg recovered. After training Karl Schranz´s mother always served us tea. That was very friendly from her, Häkkinen recalls.
-Also for Karl Schranz one of the best memories from those days is how Schranz, his younger brother Helmut and Häkkinen used to walk after training to Schranz´s parents house to eat and have a cup of warm tea.
-Kalevi was like a family member for us. And he was always hungry, Schranz smiles.
-He always showed up in St. Anton in December. Everyone knew him, and we were always waiting for him to arrive.
-On the evenings the Schranz brothers and Häkkinen used to build a jump and train ski jumping. Good training for downhill, Schranz says.
-When the travel budget is small, one just has to be wise.
-Kalevi was called the Sammelschnapper, because at the pensionat breakfast he caught the leftover rolls for a lunch. And once, when we were racing in Madonna di Campiglio, Kalevi qualified into 9th place. In victory ceremony there was a table, from which each competitor could pick up a prize on their turn. But Kalevi was very smart and moved an expensive Swiss watch behind the cheaper prizes. When his turn came, he just picked up the watch from there, Schranz says smiling.
Three world championships, two World Cup overall victories and a silver medal from the Olympics
-Häkkinen started alpine skiing with the wooden skis which his cousins had brought with them when they had evacuee the war from the area close to Russian border.
-With those skis we started to ski around the trees in the forest, says Häkkinen.
-Versatile background in different kind of sports provided a good start for an alpine skier-to-come: ski jumping, pole vault and hurdle-race were Häkkinen´s other events. In 1950 Häkkinen read from a newspaper that there would be a downhill race at Vuokatti. He traveled there by train, prepared his skis in the train and won the race. In his first international competion he took part in Gällivare, in the northern Sweden, later on the same winter.
-As an alpine skier Häkkinen represented Finland in Cortina winter Olympics in 1956. He placed 11th in alpine combined and 23rd in downhill. In World Cup giant slalom he placed 10th at his best. Between the other races Häkkinen also traveled to Squaw Valley to work and train there, and to Portillio, Chile, to compete.
-Schranz was chosen to Austria national team in 1956. A year later he took his first bigger international victory with wooden skis in Arlberg Kandahar downhill race in Chamonix. The first World Championships came from downhill and alpine combined in Chamonix in 1962. In Innsbruck winter Olympics in 1964 he took the Olympic silver at his home field. The third World Championship came from giant slalom in Val Gardena in 1970.
-World Cup overall Schranz won in 1969 and 1970. In World Cup he took 12 first places, eight from downhill and four from giant slalom. Among his toughest co-competitors were Jean Claude Killy, Toni Sailer and Gustavo Thöni.
Schranz was chosen four times for world's best alpine skier. He took part in Olympics four times, in Squaw Valley 1960, Innsbruck 1964, Grenoble 1968 and in Sapporo 1972, but Olympic gold stayed out of his reach. In Grenoble 1968, the second run of slalom was raced in a very thick fog. Schranz had to stop his run when a figure of a man in the middle of the fog crossed the course in front of him. Schranz was allowed a re-run and won Jean-Claude Killy, who had been holding the first place until then. But, couple of hours later the jury disqualified Schranz re-run.
-In the next Olympics in Sapporo 1972, Schranz was the favorite. He had already traveled to the Olympics, when Avery Brundage, American and the President of International Olympic Committee, disqualified Schranz from the Olympics, claming that Schranz had broken against the amateur rules. The Austrians thought that the charge was ridiculous since everyone knew that athletes on the top were not pure amateurs anymore. It was claimed that Brundage just wanted to make Schranz a warning example and an offer in his own war against the commercialization of the sports. Ten o thousands Austrians were welcoming and showing their support to Schranz when he returned to Wien. A couple of weeks later 33-year old Schranz announced that he would quit his competing career.
From alpine skiing to speed skiing
-In 1964 the Austrians said to Häkkinen that he should try Kilometro Lanciato, the speed skiing track in Cervinia, Italy. Häkkinen tried, and skied the new world record in speed skiing, 172 km/h. After the he started to move and more from alpine skiing to speed skiing. Speed skiing world championship he won in Cervinia in 1968.
-Häkkinen brought speed skiing to Finland and has kept up the speed outside the race tracks as well. He worked as a coach for Finnish national alpine team from 1969 until 1977. He has also trained cross country skiers the technique of downhill, coached alpine skiing teams and cooperated in establishing one of the first ski schools in Finland in Laajavuori in 1963
-In FIS speed skiing committee Häkkinen has worked as a member since 1988 and as a President since 1997. The work includes e.g. planning and controlling FIS speed skiing world championships race tracks. Also, Häkkinen is a member of a board in Finnish speed skiing federation and has worked actively in the arrangements of speed skiing World Cup in Salla, Finland. The previous World Cup in Salla was held in January 2005, and the arrangements of the next World Cup in Salla, which will be held in 2007, have already begun
-This winter Häkkinen has also tested a new kind of wax tape for Finnish ski wax manufacturer. From the secrets of ski waxing Häkkinen has experience of over 50 years. During his competion career he waxed his skis by himself, and while working as a coach for Finnish national alpine skiing team, took care of waxing the skis of the team. In the 1970´s he also instructed ski jumpers in ski waxing.
-For Häkkinen, the speed has not slowed when the years have passed by. His own speed record, 217 km/h; he skied in the age of 63 in Albertville Olympics, 1992, in which he took part as a forerunner. In Les Arcs he skied 203 km/h in the age of 67. In 2003 Häkkinen took part in FIS speed skiing World Championship in Salla, in the age of 74.
-Karl Schranz concentrated in managing his own hotel in his home village St. Anton after finishing his competing career. He also wrote articles about alpine skiing to Austrians newspapers and worked as a manger of Schischule Arlberg until the mid 1980´s. As a President of the legendary Ski Club Arlberg, which was founded in 1901, he worked until 2005.
-Schranz is still working within the alpine world, in FIS he is taking care of the safety of the race tracks.
-In St. Anton FIS World Championships 2001 Schranz played a main role, both in having the World Championships in St. Anton as well as in his work as General Secretary of the Organizing Committee. One of the World Championships race tracks, which are situated in Kapall area, is named along Schranz.
World's coldest gym
-The house of Häkkinen family in situated in Hankasalmi, central Finland, in the middle of Finnish forest landscape. Hankasalmi village is over ten kilometers away. The smaller road, leading to Häkknin´s house, is going through the wintry landscapes filled with snowy trees for a couple of kilometers from the nearest main road. In his backyard is a red painted wooden building, which has a storehouse for firewood and a gym, built by Häkkinen himself.
-The gym has no heating, and there are almost as many degrees below zero as outside in the Finnish winter.
-The coldest gym on earth, but efficient it surely has been, says Häkkninen.
-On the walls there are posters of Häkkinen speed skiing in Les Arcs and in Portillo and training on the roof of a bus, which is driving 150 km/h on German autobahn. On another wall there is a row of Häkkinen´s old skis from 1950´s to 2000´s. The gym has training equipment for all muscle groups, and all equipment is self-made. In stretching Häkkinen also utilizes the stepladder outside the storehouse.
-Häkkinen shows trough his programme, and each one of the moves is still going easily and with a good speed
-I have learned that the stretching moves are especially important when you get older. Besides the gym training, Häkkinen is keeping in shape by skiing, bicycling and chopping the firewood. But what else, besides versatile exercise, has helped Häkkinen to stay in such a good shape?
-I follow vegetarian diet and eat fish, meat I don’t eat at all. Also, I don’t drink alcohol. The simple life and stressful rhythm has been a great help as well. Taking a nap after lunch is one thing one should hold on with, describes Häkkinen.
Skiing, jogging and tennis
Karls Schranz lives with his wife and their three daughters in their hotel on the outskirts of St. Anton, on the slope that is ascending from the centre of the village. In the hotel hall there are tens of impressive photographs, from 1960´s until today: photo and letter from USA ex-president Gerald Ford, Karls Schranz shaking hands with Queen Elizabeth, Schranz skiing with Vladimir Putin during the FIS World Championships in St. Anton in 2001.
-During the winter of 1997 I was working in the evenings in the kitchen at Schranz´s hotel. On my first working day Karl Schranz came into kitchen, and straight from the kitchen door I heard "Good Finnish boy, perkele!", with quite a loud voice, in Finnish. Häkkinen had taken care of that Schranz learned at least the basics of Finnish language.
-In February 2006 I show Schranz photos which have been taken of Häkkinen training at his own gym a couple of weeks earlier.
-Well, it seems that Kalevi definitely has not changed during the years, says Schranz shaking his head and smiling.
-Like Häkkinen, also Schranz aims to keep himself in a good shape, and still enjoys skiing.
-Nowadays I usually go skiing to St. Anton, Wengen or Kitbuhel. Besides skiing I also go jogging, play tennis, golf and bicycle. I try to vegetables as often as possible, meat I do not eat more often than once a week, describes Schranz.
-Finnish national alpine skiing tram stayed in Schranz´s hotel in 2004 during their racing trip. Schranz believes that Finnish alpine skiing has good possibilities to success in the future.
-Kale and Tanja have made a good ground work, which gives an excellent starting point. Finland still needs more kids and young skiers to train in the alpine skiing clubs, but you have all possibilities to become a world-class alpine skiing country in slalom and giant slalom, says Schranz.
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